The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 271 No 7278 p764
6 December 2003

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The Freedom of Information Act 2000 and other reports (more)

Medicines Act confidentiality to go

A section of the Medicines Act 1968 that stops the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency releasing information is to be repealed (PJ, 7 December 2002, p801). Section 118 of the Act will be repealed in January 2005, to coincide with the full implementation of the Freedom of Information Act 2000. Revision will remove a blanket ban on releasing information and replace it with the exemptions and public interest tests in the Freedom of Information Act.

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency said: “This is an important better regulation and open government measure, which will remove from the statute books a bar to disclosure of information that may have been appropriate 30 years ago when medicine legislation was in its infancy, but is out of step with both the government policy on openness and legitimate public interest about medicine.”

The Freedom of Information Act 2000 allows public bodies to refuse to release information, unless it is clearly in the public interest to do so. These exemptions include safeguards for commercial confidentiality and trade secrets.

An Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry spokesman said: “We are aware of the reasons and accept that it is bound to happen,” he said: “We are going to be talking to the MHRA about what areas the exemptions will apply to.”